Mumia Abu-Jamal speaks with Democracy Now! about Pennsylvania’s new law that authorizes the censoring of public addresses of prisoners or former offenders if judges agree that allowing them to speak would cause "mental anguish" to the victim.

Pennsylvania Republican Gov. Tom Corbett is set to sign into law a bill critics say will trample the free speech rights of prisoners. Last week, lawmakers openly said they passed the legislation as a way to target one of the state’s most well-known prisoners: journalist and former Black Panther, Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted in 1982 of killing of a Philadelphia police officer, but has long maintained his innocence. During a late...

In a stunning vote, a group of U.S. Senate Democrats has broken ranks to join Republicans in rejecting President Obama’s pick to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, Debo Adegbile. The confirmation fight focused almost solely on Adegbile’s role in the legal defense of imprisoned Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer, despite Abu-Jamal’s longstanding...

We continue our interview about the issues leading to a skyrocketing population of aging people behind bars, and feature comments about their conditions from political prisoners Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier. [includes rush transcript]

Watch a video timeline of Democracy Now!’s reporting on aging political prisoners, including Lynne Stewart, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Albert Woodfox of the Angola Three and others; and see reports documenting the skyrocketing population of aging men and women expected to die behind bars in a prison system ill prepared to handle them and still oriented towards mass incarceration.

The new documentary, "Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal," premieres today in New York City. We play an excerpt of the film and speak to writer, producer and director Steve Vittoria, as well as Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio, who has interviewed Abu-Jamal many times over the years. The film features many supporters of Mumia, including actress Ruby Dee, writer Tariq Ali, and author Michelle Alexander....

The new documentary, "Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal," chronicles Abu-Jamal’s life and work as a journalist, writer and public intellectual, even as he spent some 30 years on death row in Pennsylvania. In 1982, Abu-Jamal was sentenced to die for allegedly killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. He has always maintained his innocence. Then, last year, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of...

Hundreds of supporters of former death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal marked his 58th birthday Tuesday with a protest outside the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., calling for a federal probe into his case. For decades, Abu-Jamal has argued racism by the trial judge and prosecutors led to his conviction for the killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Last year, the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a...

In a Democracy Now! exclusive, Mumia Abu-Jamal phones in from the SCI Mahanoy prison in Frackville, Pennsylvania, where he is being held in general population after nearly 30 years on death row. Although he now lives in a bigger cell than what he calls the "small dog cage" of the last three decades, Mumia says his life sentence is akin to "a slow death row. It’s bigger in terms of the time differential, but it’s slow...

Actor and activist Danny Glover speaks to Mumia Abu-Jamal for the first time after championing the jailed former Black Panther’s cause for over two decades. "I just want to tell you that — and I’m really emotional because I didn’t expect to hear your voice this morning — that we continue to struggle and will continue to struggle to fight for your release. ... We love you, brother," Glover tells Abu-Jamal. "I am...